Saturday, March 05, 2016

LOCKE: Of the Limits of Government (Hunger Artist Test Case)

In
our last reading (Kafka, A Hunger Artist) we faced this situation. A man voluntarily chose to live in a cage and
starve himself to death.It should be
noted that this took place in a public arena, in full view of a public
audience. A question arises.Should the government step in and prohibit
this type of activity?That’s one of the
questions Locke tries to answer in this reading about the limits of government.Would he have prohibited the Hunger Artist
from starving himself?Locke starts out
by defining the primary function of government.He says “The great end of man’s entering into society is the enjoyment
of their properties in peace and safety.”For Locke the government’s main purpose is to protect us and secure our
belongings.All other government
functions are, in his view, secondary and optional.We can, as a free society, choose to have our
government perform other tasks.But we
cannot choose to hand over absolute power.Why not?Locke says the utmost
bounds of power must be “limited to the public good of the society.”Back to our Hunger Artist.Is it in the public interest to prohibit his “performance”?

In
this particular case Locke wouldn’t worry too much about the public interest
because it isn’t power itself that he fears.He knows every government must have enough power at its disposal to
achieve its ends.What Locke fears is
arbitrary power.There’s a big
difference between legitimate power wielded by government under established law
and the illegitimate or arbitrary power that follows no set of rules.Under this theory Locke would prohibit the
Hunger Artist’s performance.But didn’t he
himself say that governmental power must be limited to the public good?If the Hunger Artist chooses to starve
himself to death, what business is it of the government’s?Locke responds that “nobody has an absolute
arbitrary power over himself, or over any other to destroy his own life, or
take away the life or property of another.”The key term here is arbitrary.No
man has a right to arbitrary power, not even over himself.Locke disagrees with John Stuart Mill when
Mill claims “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is
sovereign.”Locke is more closely
aligned with Edmund Burke’s notion that we do not have a right to what is not
reasonable.Starving one’s self to death
is not reasonable for the individual nor is it desirable for society.Burke may believe this.But why does Locke agree?And how would we know when our liberty or our
desire is in fact reasonable?

The
answer is, by consulting Natural Law.Locke says “the obligations of the law of nature cease not in society…
the law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men.”In other words, we don’t leave behind the
laws of nature when we enter into society.But we must be careful to implement them according to their proper
ends.Locke says “the law of nature
being unwritten, and so nowhere to be found but in the minds of men, they who
through passion or interest shall miscite or misapply it cannot so easily be
convinced of their mistake where there is no established judge.”If natural law is “nowhere to be found but in
the minds of men” then civil law must make social expectations more explicit. Law must be written down and codified so
citizens will know what is expected of them.For Locke the purpose of civil law is to make sure natural law is implemented
properly in society.And to accomplish
this goal society establishes a legislature to make legitimate laws and a
judiciary to make sure they’re applied properly.In the case of the Hunger Artist either the
legislature failed to do its duty (pass a law prohibiting public suicide by starvation)
or else the local judge failed to enforce the law (if there was already a law
on the books).Not everyone agrees.Mill, for example, stresses that legislative
power must be limited to the public good.Locke agrees with that.But they
disagree on the relationship between private conscience and the public
good.Locke’s Letter on Toleration
explains why.